EJ wrote to ask about backing up his computer:

Terry, what program do you use to back up your files

I use two programs routinely.

First, every evening, I use Karen’s Replicator (www.karenware.com, free for personal, non-business use) to copy my data files to another computer across my home network. Not only does this give me a backup copy in case of the inevitable, accidental error (such as editing a file, saving it, and then realizing that I forgot to save it with a different file name), it also gives me a backup in case of a failure of my hard drive.

Replicator lets me set up multiple tasks and specify the day of the week and the time for them to be performed. If I set several for the same time, they will run in the order listed.

I also use Replicator to make a backup of certain files on my hard drive to another location on my hard drive. This gives me an easily accessible copy for that brain-freeze error.

Then, on a weekly basis, I use Acronis True Image Home 11 to make an image of my C: drive. I have True Image set to store that image on another computer on my home network.

Continue reading Backing Up Your Files

Subscriber Geraldine Astbury wrote from the U.K. to ask about some strange reliability problems she was having with her external hard drive.

Hi Terry, I wondered if you could help me with another problem. You’ve helped me before successfully so I thought I’d ask you again.

I purchased a Medion ‘Hard Drive To Go’ external 250 gig hard drive two years and four months ago. Although I didn’t use it very much it did work. Then all of a sudden it stopped working. I rang Medion and they very kindly replaced it. I had it only a few months and it stopped working again. Medion repaired it saying I had a Cypress driver problem and they had replaced the caddy. This lasted only a few days and then stopped working again. Medion repaired it again saying it was a Cypress drive error and replaced the PCB Board. It worked every day for seven weeks and now has suddenly stopped working again. …

Continue reading External Hard Drive Problems

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Subscriber and long-time reader Scott Adler wrote to me about his experiences with three of the various anti-spam programs. I’ve used Mailwasher Pro and PopFile and like both, but they are entirely different in their approach to spam. My current choice is PopFile.

Continue reading Anti-Spam Program Choices

Products:

• MailWasher Pro full-function 30-day trial
• iHateSpam full-function 30-day trial
• PopFile free

I’m sure you’ve heard about the On-Star satellite system sold by General Motors as an add-on for their automobiles. On-Star is billed as a method to give you instant access to help and even remote control of your vehicle. Lock yourself out of your car? No problem, call On-Star and they’ll unlock it for you. In a crash? They’ll call you to make sure you’re all right because the triggering of the air bags triggers a warning to them. Lost? Get directions.

Before On-Star, and still available for other autos, was a system called Lojack. It would respond to a special transmission and announce respond with its location. In other words, if it was stolen, you could get the Lojack people to locate the vehicle so it could be recovered.

Now, Absolute Software licensed the Lojack name to use with their software product Lojack for Laptops.

I’d read about it a couple times. Then, one day I noticed that Dell Computer was including it as part of the Complete Care package for their notebooks — at least on the models that I was considering.

So, I started looking at Lojack for Laptops again. The more I read, the more I liked. Just like Lojack for automobiles, Lojack for Laptops is a system designed to help recover the stolen property! They claim an 80+% recovery rate on stolen laptops versus a normal 3%.

Continue reading Lojack for Laptops

Amazing how MS can put such a positive spin on fixing the security problems it has allowed to fester and expand.

It’s good to hear that Microsoft is the Windows Vista security feature API’s with third-party security tool vendors, but I’m not sure how real this will be. And, apparently McAfee and Symantec aren’t either, based on the posting today it ITBusinessEdge.

This API sharing announcement has all the positive spin, and the potential for nothingness, of Microsoft’s “sharing” of code with open-source programmers.